Storage devices such as disk drives include storage media used for storing data, such as files, directories, and other types of data objects. Typically, when a user deletes a data object, the information that is actually deleted is the reference information to the data object. The actual data object still remains on the storage media even after deletion, which poses security or privacy concerns.
To actually remove data objects stored on storage media, storage device native secure erase commands have been defined that overwrite everything on a storage media in the storage device by repeatedly writing a predefined pattern (e.g., a pattern including a given number, followed by the given number's inverse, then the given number again and then sometimes followed by a zero, or some other pattern). The effect of writing theses patterns on storage media is that it reverses the polarity of the storage media in such a fashion that makes it very difficult to extract the original data from the media. This effectively destroys the original data stored on the storage media and renders the original data inaccessible. With some forms of storage media, reversing the polarity of a number in the pattern may not have to be performed. As yet another alternative, other mechanisms may be employed to ensure that the original data cannot be easily recovered.
An issue associated with conventional secure erase commands is that they may not provide some features that may be desirable to end users.